


Denial

by tnico



Series: Flow [1]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Case Fic, Gen, How Do I Tag, M/M, Riddles, Toussaint (The Witcher), WE HAVE REACHED THEM RIDDLES FOLKS, aiden being you-know and all, i guess?, it's a bad sneeze on a cliff-top away from oc romance honestly, lambert hates toussaint (and it's mutual), rude witcher man argues about jam: the fic, the important thing here is i reinforced my gag that, waves hands excitedly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:40:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23722486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tnico/pseuds/tnico
Summary: Not a river, no, but all the same: if you go to the effort to walk it back, you'll always end up at its source.Lambert & Aiden go to the river to break a curse. They talk, they listen, they talk a bit more, and manage to do some curse-breaking in-between.
Relationships: Aiden/Lambert (The Witcher)
Series: Flow [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2010676
Comments: 164
Kudos: 205





	1. Very doubtful.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you're buckled up for some _obscure french history references_ because yes i am still the big nerd, it is still me. i lifted a few parts of those riddles from medieval sources, too! it's not plagiarism if they were all uncredited anyway and also all super dead!!!!
> 
> i've got all the beats planned out, so i'll just be releasing this in bits as the mood takes to get 'em out and polish 'em.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh almost forgot!! TW: mentions of suicide

Aiden tracks him down to a tavern two days after he leaves. It's not surprising; he hasn't been making himself hard to find. He might not be entirely certain as to the personal particulars of _why_ he had to leave right then just yet, but he's sure at this point it wasn't about not being found, if.

If Aiden was going to come looking for him, which clearly's been done, given he's here. He drops next to Lambert on the bench by the hearth. Instead of making the same stupid dog-by-the-fire joke he always does, he says "Want to come with me and go break a curse?"

Lambert, put off his step by the old familiarity set to a new rhythm, defaults to his usual retort on those offers. "I don't take curse-breakers."

"Don't _usually_ , but couldn't you make an exception for me, Lambert?" Aiden has already gotten started on the wheedling, so he's actually invested in this as more than an opening gambit. Huh. Lambert narrows his attention. "And anyway, you'll be so good at this one. Apparently there's poetry involved!"

Lambert squints over at Aiden, who is as all sunny grins as-ever. "The hell are you _talking_ about? I've never read a poem in my gods-damned _life_. What, am I supposed to be good at _words_?"

(He's had a couple read _at_ him, back when that fucking coin song had first taken off and apparently some bards decided witchers were the new In for the season, but a couple rounds of bullshitting them about witcher lore had put an end to _that_ real quick. He still smiles whenever he overhears that old one he spun out on a whim about the summer camp's cannibal picnics taking off again. What, the finger-food could be actual fingers, you can't tell him he hasn't provided the peasantry with some fun imagery to chew (hah) over. He's a real _friend of humanity_ like that.)

"What are _you_ talking about?" Aiden echoes, bewildered. "You've always been the best talker I know."

"Best _talker?_ Bull _shit_ , Aiden, since when do I willingly go _talk_ to people."

"Well, sure, you don't talk _to_ people, but you can't say you don't get a _lot_ of practice in by being physically incapable of not talking _back_ to people. Here, try it!"

Aiden folds his hands in his lap. Smiling close-mouthed like he's doing gives his face a truly obnoxious cast.

"Oh, fuck off," Lambert snaps before he thinks. Aiden's smile opens up and gets _only more obnoxious_.

Aiden shakes his head, his voice thick with the sort of fondness that sets the itching off across Lambert's skin and makes him want to, just. He doesn't know. Knowing his track record, probably leave. "Physically incapable."

"You really do have a knack, you know," he continues, with a frankly unwarranted level of self-confidence given it's not _himself_ he's fucking rambling about. "I can still quote from memory the best bits of that time you crushed me with that unbel _iev_ ably horseshit hand in Gwent. I know for a fact you were entirely drunk off your ass, yet you still managed to narrate for me an entire academic career I'd pursued in the study of being a bitch at, I quote, 'the storied and bilioustrious University of Bitchington-on-the-Green'." He pauses for a moment to consider his own recounting. "I always assumed you were combining 'bilious' with 'illustrious', there."

Lambert frowns. "You remember that? _I_ don't remember that."

"Of course I remember that! There were some real twists. Also, I liked when you added me a minor in being a _little_ bitch to my list of diplomas, which I thought particularly clever from a man who couldn't successfully stand himself from his own chair."

Lambert's own memories are the dead-blank on that front which means he at least knew he was drinking, but he has to admit: it does sound like him. "Doesn't matter, though. That's just bullshitting, it's the definition of meaningless. That poetry shit's supposed to be all _about_ meaning. They're functionally opposites."

"Wow, Lambert, that's so poignant and observant of you! Add your fast stab with a sharp tongue and you're basically a natural at this stuff!"

Lambert _really_ wants to tell him to fuck off again for that, but he actually does know when digging in will only make it easier for your opponent to bury you (even if he hardly ever lets it stop him.) He switches tactics, because hey, if Aiden's _suggesting_. "I only get _sharp-tongued_ when I have the grain of _truth_ to whet my words against, you draft-horse's ass."

"See? That, there! You just come _up_ with things like that! You've got just the sort of keen way for the word we'll need if we're to free that poor girl trapped in the Sansretour, my friend."

" _I don't take curse-breakers_ ," Lambert reiterates, though given it's clear that battle's going to be as winnable as this words one (and if he's apparently so fucking _good with words_ then why did it keep feeling like he was losing the argument on that, _Aiden_ ) continues. "Who's the client?"

Aiden stretches his hands in front of him to warm them by the fire and turns his grin to it. "Right! About, ah, that. You could say the client this time is called, ah, perhaps... ...the spirit of adventure?"

Lambert pushes off the bench to leave. He doesn't really intend to, but they've played their parts often enough their next moves are the thoughtless lockstep of habit; Aiden, accordingly, snakes out to grip his sleeve and tug him back down with an entreating whine of " _Noooo_ , Lambert, c'mon, come _baaaack_ ," using _way_ more strength than needed for anything like making it a _suggestion_.

Lambert huffs a sigh as he's menaced back into sitting by a man who is a good half-foot taller than anyone else in the room and yet currently whining like he's a child.

"So you want me to work for free, is that it."

"Nooooo, don't think of it like a _job_ , Lambert. Think of it like a break!"

Lambert keeps his stare mercilessly flat, so as to to best make clear Aiden better not expect he's getting _this_ sort of tactic off the ground."Your idea of a break is _curse-breaking._ The shit we only do because we get _paid_ to."

"But we get to do it here!" Aiden gestures around him. Lambert glances around the tavern, then pulls his medallion out from his gambeson to examine it, frowning.

"Not _here_ here, Lambert, you put that back, this place is fine. As far as we know. And as I like the pickles here, I choose to trust. You've had the pickles, haven't you? A bold innovator's on the staff when it comes to those spices, I tell you-- right, right, yes, I see that face, I understand that's not the topic at hand." He takes a breath, and regretfully it does not look like it's a preface to him maybe slowing. "Look beyond the walls that keep us in, my friend!"

Lambert has tucked the medallion away after he reached out to knock his fist against the wooden table thrice at the mention of cursing and taverns. (He's been trying that out, recently-- he's through enough of Destiny punching him in the balls _just because_ he might as well see if this'll pay his dues when it's called on.) "Even Cat's eyes aren't _that_ good."

"I know, smartass! I'm trying a few things out on the poetry front myself. Just-- imagine, Lambert," and does the usual shifting and manhandling required even when seated to deal with negotiating his pointless fucking crane-fly arms around the shoulders of someone who's at _normal_ height. "The two of us, enjoying the fresh blush of a new spring in the Toussaintois country-side, taking a leisurely ride to a picturesque village nestled on the curve of the noble Sansretour. We'll have a nice trip out, ferret away at a tragic curse to free a girl's trapped spirit without demands to bend to or schedule to keep to. And it was a suicide at the start, even, so I'll bet you nothing's even going to try to kill us!"

The next time someone tries to make the case to him that Aiden's the "normal" one of the two of them, Lambert is going to make them listen to him trill about suicide as cheerily as he does everything else. It took some getting used to. "And you still haven't brought up the _why_."

"Suicide's attempted because you want to escape from life, right? And she tried, and she's trapped," is Aiden's answer. "Whatever she was after, that wasn't it. Doesn't seem fair to leave her there."

Aiden goes quiet to let it sink in, because going quiet's as much a way for him to manipulate things just as the air-filling chatter is. And even though Lambert _knows_ he's only doing it because he wants Lambert to go for it, and from anyone else that's Lambert's usual cue to say or do the exact _opposite_ of what was they're trying to get from him, usually while staring them dead in the eye, it's working. When Aiden uses his silences on Lambert it's always for shit that's got meaning so it sinks on in anyway.

There's always meaning, at the bottom of what he says. He's nowhere in him a bullshitter, not like Lambert is. Oh, he'll spin a lot of nice-sounding shit around it, but it's all a pearl's nacre slopped around that truth-grain.

There's meaning behind anything Aiden ever does, really. Maybe he would do better on the poetry front than he thinks. In the stead of saying that, Lambert says "Your obsession over freeing shit is always _way_ too fucking costly, Aiden."

"See! That, that right there! Free, costly, brilliant! Do you even notice you do it, at this point?"

Lambert rolls his eyes and crosses his arms. "So _you_ go do it. Why do you need me?"

"Because I want to do something _with_ you, Lambert."

Lambert shifts on the bench. Aiden's still-draped arm just feels... heavy. "So why does it have to be slogging to some fuck-all village for the incredible reward of getting versed-at by some sad-sack dead girl?"

Aiden pretends to consider it for a moment, so Lambert braces instinctually for whatever's coming next. "Well, Lambert, the way I see it, there's two things we could do. We could take a day off for a day's trip to Flovive to break a curse, oooooor we could just sit here and have a talk about the kiss."

Lambert is out from Aiden's arm and pulling his swords on his back before he's even aware he's doing it. Aiden does not make any effort to tug him back this time, just drops his hands and keeps smiling at him in the way that reaches his eyes. Lambert scowls, hands slowing at the automatic buckling of his harness, because Lambert may not have meaning to all the shit he does but he likes knowing he means to _do_ what he does, at the least.

Aiden stands as theatrically as usual, this time going for the brushing-nonexistent-whatever off his lap and clicking the back of his boot-heel against the bench-leg when he's finished. "So what'll it be, Lam-boy?"

Lambert's scowl deepens, but he actually does know when he's been buried. "So let's go save your stupid water-tart," he grumbles, turning to the door.

Aiden's already following him out. As ever, he's grinning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cliff notes for ya:  
> wolf lads, some winters ago: where the fuck did the thing about _cannibal picnics_ come from, anyway.  
> lambert, halfway through a can of applesauce: does where it come from really _matter_ , fellas. what's important here is it's _hilarious_. honestly wish i'd thought of it.
> 
> and i always love comments! if you don't wanna, you ain't gotta, but if you have something to say, please! i am. look. trying not to catch COVID and die. so bored, yes. any and all thoughts a blessing!


	2. Don't count on it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a quick chunk! i'd actually make this part of a longer chapter- when i've got it all done i might consolidate the thing to make more spacial sense- but this is just for funsies anyway! and i've always found the further i get the more motivated i am to finish, so firing bits off when they're done helps me tip the scales on that somewhat.
> 
> cw: reference to some canon-typical violence, oblique reference to child death

As per-usual, Aiden waits until they're both saddled and riding out towards Flovive before he starts giving Lambert shit over it, presumably so he has a fair chance of catching up to him should Lambert once again decide he's had enough of this. At least Aiden wasn't wrong about one thing; it's a nice day for the ride.

"--And to think, us Cats could have had complete victory, had we only realized the surest way to defeat a Wolf was to demand they confront their emotions!"

" _Oh, yeah_ , Cats and confronting their _emotions_ , 'cuz that always ends so _fucking well_ ," Lambert snaps back at him.

"Got me there," Aiden laughs, one-handing his reins so he can lean back and clutch at his side like he's been stabbed. Lambert bares his teeth as his response, because fucking _right_ he did.

"Sounded like you got something on the ghost. You already gathered the particulars?"

"I did, at that," Aiden agrees cheerfully, and Lambert prepares himself for the tonal ups-and-downs that inevitably result from Aiden attempting to navigate a tragedy.

* * *

Because Aiden can't, not really. Literally, fundamentally, he can't. And it was jarring, at first, and _highly_ suspect, how this fucking hopped-up hero-wannabe hightower who kept following him around and wouldn't leave him alone would in most situations act like he's all legitimately a _good person_ and shit (fucking rare enough in anyone, let alone a _Cat witcher_ ) and then would just suddenly take a jag-out-of-nowhere and say or do something _inexplicably_ _horrible_ without any apparent awareness that was what he had done.

And Lambert had put up with it and put up with it until one day he _just_ _couldn't put up with it_ and had dragged Aiden away by the back of his shirt from the wide-eyed, gaping alderman (because like hell are they getting any contracts _now_ , after Aiden fucking said _that_ ), slammed him up against the wall of the nearest dead-end he could find in this average-shithole village to snarl that he drop that fucking bleeding heart act he puts up all the time if he can't at least fake through it when it _counts_.

Aiden could apparently tell he was the sort of furious about it in the way that usually changed things (not just the baseline-pissed-off he tends to wield for any inconvenience) because he didn't even make the joke about Lambert's habitual usage of nearby alleys when it comes to a menacing. Aiden had held up his hands and just... told him the whole story about Cat mutagens. It'd honestly thrown Lambert off at the start: you don't last long as a witcher if you put your trust in the apparent-honesty of the person giving you answers, no matter how innocuous it seems.

But it tracked, and it settled the frustratingly arbitrary nature of Aiden's jags, even if it didn't really _absolve_ them. Because it turns out all of Papa Vesemir's endless warnings about the downfall of the Cat school and how they'd become slaves to their own brutish nature, no better than the beasts they only sometimes deigned to hunt, was that balance of sorta-true-sorta-bullshit that fit the theme of everything _else_ he thought he'd learned at Kaer Morhen and then actually had to figure out for himself later on.

So a Cat witcher's emotions do seize dominance over their behavior, turns out. It's just that there's actually an entire _spectrum_ of emotions out there. Which, now that he thinks about it, was _also_ one of those things he only actually learned about _after_ he left Kaer Morhen, so possibly that also explains the Vesemir thing.

So Aiden had gone onto the table a cheerful, resilient human and came off of the table a cheerful, resilient mutant who now _couldn't turn it off_. And turns out being doomed to being always-cheery is far more survivable than being doomed to being always-angry, so he kept on going while so many of his brothers and sisters were flaming out in all those downfalls-with-an-impact-crater that fucked witcher reps up even _worse_ (fucking _thanks_.)

But he _kept on going,_ because for all that he still looks fairly boyish (provided the boy had a go on the rack to give him those skinny-ass crane-legs of his that make up the most of his body) and whines like a five year-old when denied, Lambert's figured he's at least old as Geralt and Eskel, probably older. He'd have to be, given Lambert knows he was part of (if not _part of_ _)_ the generation that pulled the Cat-coup while riding high off that new brand of mutagens.

And so he tries to get it, Aiden said, really he does, but it's really only just intellectual for him, now. He has to parse out the right response through the understanding that things like that are meaningful and important to _others_ , not because he _understands_ it. Because it's been so, so long since he ever felt anything like sorrow, and his sum-total experience at the art is a handful of a young child's years at least a century ago, and he can _comprehend_ , sure, that these are things that upset people but he simply doesn't and never will _understand_ the open wound of tragedy and loss. He just can't. His only chance before the Trial would have had to been losing his parents, and from the quick understanding the two of them reached there on _that_ particular subject, Lambert's gotten the impression that those ones had been already lost before Aiden was of the age to even be aware he'd lost out.

So sure, Lambert might not be able to _understand_ how it is, to have an entire fundamental facet of the human experience made unrecognizable to you (as opposed to just the fear, which in his own experience if it factors at all is much more briefly and in passing), but after Aiden just up-and-said what it was that made him act so fucking weird sometimes (which: an actual, straightforward answer to his fucking question, always a downright novel experience from _anyone_ ) he found he could _comprehend_ it, and then it stopped being a problem for him, really. It's not like it's something Aiden can change, no more than either of them can trade their eyes back in for the old pair.

So Aiden's always cheerful, and sometimes that means he and Aiden will be standing there in the remains of a village one of those monstrous brands of human flattened for whatever _fucking stupid_ _selfish_ _pointless_ reason this-time-around, and Lambert will have to stare into the milky eyes of the only half they could find of someone's dead little kid from the pile of corpses they'd stacked as they start the burn with the accompanying background noise of Aiden chattering fucking _whatever_ about fucking ghoul nests and sounding downright _jaunty_ about it.

Yet Aiden might not _get_ it but he does actually try, and he does actually listen, and always stops when Lambert snaps at him to do so because it's just-- too fucking much at the moment. So Lambert stopped getting mad at him for it, because, what, like he has a right to demand Aiden start doing shit he fundamentally cannot do? The only reason he got proper mad at Aiden for it in the first place is because _Lambert_ fundamentally can't stop himself from getting mad like that when he does (without even the excuse of the fucking mutagens) so it's not like he's got _stones to throw_ unless he starts with himself, first. And he's only ever been able to work around that fucking problem, not solve it, just like Aiden has, so maybe there are just those fucking-head problems where all you _can_ do is work with it and deal.

And maybe Aiden doesn't get it, but he stops making it worse when Lambert tells him to. And now Lambert gets it, so he can tell Aiden when he doesn't realize he's making it worse. So Aiden still fumbles when it comes to sad shit, but now it doesn't drive Lambert _bat_ -shit.

So neither of them have fixed any of their problems, but turns out things can still work out all right anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cliff notes for ya:  
> aiden: ah, a good roast with igni never gets old. much like this dead child!  
> lambert: aiden. it is time to stop,


	3. My sources say no.

"--And so the lovely Sequana was dredged from the river along with her journal, but as it was far too water-logged to read her motives for taking her life remain a mystery. People were still quite upset about that journal, actually. Apparently Flovive had a bit of a cottage industry going in being the choice of residence for a beauteous poet of minor renown-- suitors and such need a place to bunk down like anyone else. You know how the Toussaintois get, the final missives of a tragic beauty taken too soon is _exactly_ the sort of thing they go for."

"Fucking good for her, then, tossing it," Lambert shoots back, nodding in the direction of the Sansretour in the distance. The path they're on is lazily following its curves. It's actually kind of nice, keeping their pace similarly lazy. Riding somewhere to do a witcher's work with the certainty that probably-no-one's-going-to-die even if you don't get there in time has loosened something in his shoulders he wasn't aware of. "Her journal, her business. Just 'cuz she's dead now doesn't make it any less _still_ _hers_."

"Hadn't thought of it like that, but I can't say I disagree," Aiden considers. "Bad for us, though, if we need to solve this by giving her peace."

"Any leads on why she's popping up in the river _now_ _?_ If it was the suicide that did it, it'd have happened right after. Starting it halfway through the next savead out isn't anywhere standard." He counts off his fingers to make sure he's got his numbers there added right, pressing his lips tight at the sound of Aiden's low chuckle.

"No clue!" Aiden admits cheerily. "I thought a past suitor might have dropped into town, but I checked at the inn and apparently I was the only person around who wasn't a local."

"So where's the poetry figure into the ghosting?"

"Oh, it's all quite romantic. You know how the Toussaintois get," Aiden repeats wistfully and in apparent solidarity, because for all that he consistently loses his train of thought for good food his taste remains nevertheless _terrible_. "Down by the river, on a peaceful little hillock where the water runs slower-- her habitual purlieu to sit and write her poetry and look pretty, it seems-- you gaze into the water. Just you, I'm told it doesn't work if two people are looking. And! In the place of your reflection is Sequana, though her extolled face is just--" he gestures in front of his own face, like Lambert's supposed to know what _that_ means. "--And if you try to talk to her, she comes out with a neat little poem that makes _no_ sense. I think they're riddles, actually. I kept asking her how I could free her from there, and the only thing I could get out of her every way I phrased it was 'I ask, but never answer'."

Aiden widens his eyes and spreads his hands at Lambert, like that's supposed to be confusing. Lambert rolls his eyes. "She was asking you to name yourself, scarecrow."

"...What?"

"What do you mean, what? Haven't you ever played a game of riddles? The answer's 'owl'."

"Lambert," Aiden says, slow and mildly exasperated like _Lambert's_ the one not getting it, here. "That tells me nothing."

"Owls hoot, Aiden."

"Lambert _._ Laaaambert. Lambert. _Lambert that tells me nothing._ "

"Owls _hoot_ , Aiden!" Lambert jabs his hand towards him to emphasize, because _how is he still not getting it_. "Hoo! Who! She was asking fucking _who_ , you dense jackass!"

"Oooohhhhhh," Aiden says, drawing the sound out way-too-long like he does. "All right, I get it now. Who! I _knew_ you were the one who could help. You're brilliant!"

Lambert snorts derisively. "It's just a puzzle. Puzzles are some easy shit."

Aiden just grins at him for a moment before he speaks. "I know you don't go talking to a lot of people, Lambert, but out here the rest of us tend to find puzzles to be somewhat puzzling."

"Well, they're not. Riddles especially, if you just know how to do 'em."

"And clearly I do not know how to do them! So I, for one, would be fascinated if you might show me the way."

Lambert has to think about it for a moment, because it's not something he's ever tried to _teach_ , it's just something he _does_. "It's like-- with riddles, the answer to them's just-- the gap. The gap in what they're saying. So you just look for the gap, and wherever it is, that's where the answer will fit, and then you go from there. Don't look at what they're _saying_ , look in the space of what they _don't_ say."

"Huh," Aiden considers. "Could you always do that?"

That's another thing Lambert has to think about before he speaks. "No, I definitely picked it up," Lambert guesses. "Try spending most winters with the majority of your company being _G_ _eralt_ and _E_ _skel_. I have witnessed those two brick-tongue-mind-twin motherfuckers have _entire conversations_ held through the medium of fucking intonation-of-grunt _more than once_."

Aiden laughs, because Lambert's told him enough about them even if he only knows them by name. "That'd do it!"

There's a moment of just riding, then Aiden starts up again. "Why don't you go for curse-breaking contracts any more, then, if you're so good at puzzles?"

Lambert can feel his face twisting into a sneer. "The other part."

"Going to need more than that."

"The puzzles, that's easy. The fucking _negotiations_ you gotta go through with the cursed, though, _ugh_ ," he says, with feeling.

Aiden starts to laugh again. "Lambert. Laaaaambert. Are you telling me you get fed up and start _cursing out the cursed?_ "

Lambert looks away and doesn't deign to answer that, which only serves to make Aiden laugh harder. "Oh, fucking-- fucking fuck you, spider-legs, _stop_. That's _not_ the other part, Aiden, that's still the _first part_."  
  


Aiden settles quickly enough, straightening up. "The other part, then."

"Yeah," Lambert says, still keeping his gaze on the river. "The-- seeing how things go doesn't make me good at making _others_ see how it goes."

Aiden keeps quiet, so it feels like there's space to continue. "Either the target's an asshole who fucking deserved it or the client's the asshole who's fucking making me clean up their _victim_ and I can't do _shit_ about it. So it's just assholes all the way down, and I just-- had enough."

"Lots of jobs are assholes all the way down, though."

"Yeah," Lambert repeats. Aiden has gone silent again, because he wants Lambert to tell him more and he's long-figured out that's the way to do it. And that sets that itch down his spine again, so it's almost a relief to have the distraction of forcing out "There was a-- bad job."

Usually that's enough, in the rare times he talks to other witchers. They've all had their bad jobs, every one of them. Aiden, because he was raised by fucking savages who didn't teach him to leave off about those things witchers don't talk about, prompts "Bad job?"

Lambert throws a thumb over his shoulder. "It was around here, actually. Couple of decades ago. You ever hear about that fire that burned down the Retz manor?"

It feels odd, to have to ask. That there'd be someone out there who hadn't heard of it. Like the looming memory should be just as still-alive in everyone else's mind instead of just Lambert's. It's been decades now and still he avoids abattoirs because the sight of a meat hook means that _fucking_ shitshow of a contract is going to weigh heavy on his mind until the next time he has the spare money to get blasted-drunk.

"I did, in fact," Aiden says. "No survivors, right?"

"'Cept me," Lambert confirms. "It went bad."

"Ah," Aiden nods. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Lambert gives him a look.

Aiden just grins. "W-e-llllll, Lam-boy, we could talk about the job, _or_ we could maybe-perhaps-talk-about-the--"

Lambert cuts him off. "You can't keep fucking using that."

"Oh, I absolutely can," Aiden says, his grin spread nearly to his ears now. "Lambert, look me in the eyes, I _absolutely_ _can_. Although," he pauses, "I'm really not trying to push you, you know? I mean, I've _met_ you, I know how trying _that_ tends to go. So, just. When you're ready, I'll be here."

Lambert has to take a moment to sort through all the reflexive replies for that to find one that actually means what he wants to say.

He shifts his attention back to the Sansretour, the path they're on having taken them right on the bank of it. "I know. I know that. I'm just-- thinking." It still feels frustratingly inadequate, but at least it's not an attack.

"I know," Aiden echoes. "And wherever you end up, we'll still be friends."

"Yeah," Lambert says, quiet under the sound of the river.

"Yeah," Aiden echoes again. "I think it's all going quite well, actually!"

Lambert angles a quizzical look at him, because that sure-as-shit isn't how _he_ feels like it's going.

"Lambert, your usual choice of tactics for handling emotions in your arsenal consist of either aggressively talking about it to anyone in range as stabbingly as you can so that they'll leave you alone or somehow-equally-as-aggressively _not_ talking about it so that they'll leave you alone. Don't give me that look, I had this criticism of your methodology hashed out before I kissed you."

"So fucking leave me alone, then," Lambert grumbles, though he knows Aiden knows he doesn't actually, well.

Doesn't, actually.

"Right? I'd suppose a proper gentleman would give you time alone to consider the matter. But I know you, Lambert, and when you have time alone to consider matters you can wind yourself up to some very dark places."

Lambert turns back so Aiden can see his eye-roll. "And you're here to just brighten up my day from the _charity_ of your _heart_ , sure."

Aiden beams. "Dark places, brightened days- you _natural_ " he coos. Lambert goes for another eye-roll. "But you've spotted it. I want to spend time with you _while_ you're cooking it in that big ol' cauldron of yours- give me something. You have something. I see that look. I know you're thinking it, you might as well say it."

Lambert huffs a loud breath of frustration and turns his attention to the trees this time. "...And so you thought you'd come along and spice things up, I suppose," he grinds out, because he's finding his penchant for spontaneous swipe-backs much less satisfying now that they've been functionally neutered into called shots.

Aiden smiles, using his laundry-pole reach to elbow Lambert in the shoulder. "You know me. And I know you. Which is www-hhh-yyy I like you, you know." He smiles, using the angle to its best effect in a way Lambert _damn well knows_ is conscious because he's seem him _use it on other people_ . So of course it makes him look handsome. It's _supposed_ to. "That spicy enough?"

Lambert decides that to not dignify that with an answer serves as answer enough. It is several whole minutes later for Aiden to realize "I could've said something about you being so salty!"

"And if you keep trying to be _saucy_ 'bout using of words I'll as _sault_ your scarecrow ass and salt the fucking earth with it."

"Melitele's lips! You genius, why can you always do that _so fast_."

"Look, fucking _stop_ ," Lambert says, driven by the familiar feeling of ratcheting frustration. "Stop with the-- it's not a _smart_ thing, it's a _bullshitting_ thing. It's just being quick-on-the-draw, anyone can do it."

"Whaaaat. You're _incredibly_ smart, Lambert--"

Lambert turns in his seat to jab towards Aiden and hiss "If you think I'm so _fucking smart_ all the time you should stop fucking _laughing_ at me when I gotta count off my fingers."

They are both taken aback by the immediacy and ferocity Lambert spits that out with. That happens, sometimes, with him, where it turns out something he'd _thought_ he'd thought was sufferable (that never seemed worth the fight it'd be to bring up because it'd just start off another round of Wolves-know-no-weakness bullshit and go nowhere anyway) is in fact _entirely insufferable_ at this here very moment, like a ghoul infestation left ignored until alghouls sprouted.

Lambert ducks his head, and Aiden straightens out his suddenly-unsettled scabbard to give the startled air between them time to settle, the usual mutual signal of silently acknowledging Lambert sometimes raises the temperature not because he means to but because it just comes out of his head still hot. It's one of those weird, roundabout social cues like they're in a fucking theater play or something he usually hates having to partake in, but he has to admit this one really does work for him. It actually allows the two of them to generally talk about the problem, for one, instead of the usual way it goes for him with other people and just fighting about it.

Aiden's dropped the grin for a smaller, more-sincere-looking smile. "It's not because I ever thought you were stupid, Lambert. You've lived decades longer than any human and still have trouble adding your threes and sevens. I've lived centuries longer than any human and I'll still never remember how to spell the word 'recommend' the right way. Or 'necessary'. It's just how it goes. One man's mountain passage is another's bump in the road. Oh! Or 'separate', I _never_ can get that one right."

Lambert squints. "Aiden. How the _fuck_ did you know it's threes and sevens."

The grin's back. "I can count off your fingers too, Lam-boy. I always thought it was cute, you know. Even before I, well. You know."

Which, yeah. He knows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cliff notes for ya:  
> aiden: by the sweet parting of melitele's lips!  
> lambert: for the life of me i have never been able to tell if you're being sincere with that or if you're making a pussy joke  
> aiden: and i'll _never_ tell :D
> 
> next chapter'll be along in just a bit! it's one of those chunks i already banged out when i was feeling the spirit, so all I need to do is the clean-up.
> 
> if you catch the obscure french history reference i dropped in there, yep. i'm basing it off that one.


	4. Better not tell you now.

Aiden's the only one he's ever managed that with. Talking out the problem. He'd asked about it, a few ales in, and Aiden had said it wasn't uncommon to be scratched at like that by his fellow Cat witchers, given their mutation draw-backs. He went on to compare it to directing the crowd's chorus like a well-trained troubadour, refusing to let them commandeer the timing or the tone of the tune. He'd further said, after further drinks, that he thought Lambert has the kind of pace that looks like it knows where it's going and so people get caught up in it, even when Lambert doesn't intend for them to be-he-doesn't-think.

And Lambert doesn't, sometimes. Sometimes someone says something they might've even said to him before and he's just _mad_ about it without planning to be (and it feels less like he's picking a fight as much as a fight's picked him). But no amount of alcohol in him is gonna get that out in the open air if ever.

The next day, while he waited for his head to stop hurting and had nothing better to do than think about the night, he'd realized it was actually terrifying. In the intellectual way, the only kind of fear that still works on him. It was actually terrifying, to have someone admit to you so thoughtlessly all the puppeteering they put into manipulating people, how deft and simple they find it. And in the very same breath, how thoughtlessly well Aiden managed to crack him open from the center like a crabling and see even those things about himself he's only ever thought, would never dare to put word to.

He'd wondered if the reason he likes Aiden so much, feels that Aiden maybe really likes being around him and fucking around with him and having someone with which to talk back who gets _it_ and gets _you_ , is because Aiden's so good at making people think that. Like the smiling and the stupid jokes are sort form of Axii. Lambert knows Aiden can get people to do shit he wants without ever dropping the sign. He's seen him do it. 

He'd wondered, then, what Aiden is getting out of this from him. There's nothing in his life he's got that Aiden could make use of, really, not when they've from-the-start been splitting any of the rare contracts to share by a fair halving even when risking it solo was monetarily more worth the risk.

He was suddenly, entirely certain that he doesn't want to know the actual answers. He was also entirely certain he wouldn’t be able to stop the questions from spilling from him as soon as Aiden says whatever he'll say next time to make Lambert that sudden-spillover kind of mad. So he didn't tell Aiden he was leaving, he just left.

Aiden, for some inexplicable reason at that moment that _yeah, all right_ , made sense _after,_ tracked him to his camp site the next day. He didn't say anything in greeting. He just sat next to Lambert, who'd gone from approacher-alert to honestly baffled, on the dried-out log he built the fire near and drummed his fingers on his seat. He was spared the first move by Aiden asking "If it was me, will you tell me what it was?"

Lambert had been chewing on it the whole day's ride, so it was actually fairly easy to lay out when asked directly. And it's stupid, but talking with Aiden about his own stupid shit has helped him before.

"You see a lotta me. In the--" he gestured inwards, towards himself "--sort of way. More than anyone ever has, probably."

Aiden let the faint vibrations of his drumming fingers fill the space. It was actually a bit gratifying, to know he was taking the time to put the thought into his answers. Lambert had certainly been obsessing over his questions long enough.

"Well, you haven't made it easy," he said, and it's carefully just-light-enough in tone to make clear he was leaving it to Lambert to pick if it's the start of something further or a joke. It's that thoughtlessly thoughtful he's so good at and it had already set Lambert's teeth on edge.

"I don't think there's much in there worth looking further," Lambert said right out, because he had already exhausted himself on all the versions to be had of this argument with his own fucking self. "And it felt like you could, if you really wanted to. And I didn't want you to look further. Don't want you to-- see. To know what you'd see. They aren't ever things even I like looking at, and they're _my_ things. So I left."

Aiden's fingers stilled to a stop when Lambert started speaking. There was another careful consideration, the ambient silence of the campfire's cracks and the cricket's creaks.

"I've liked everything I've seen in you, Lambert."

"Bull _shit_ , you turned into a jabbering fishwife the last time I got stabbed."

"Oh, the smartass has clocked back in?"

Lambert had jerked to the side so he could jab his finger into Aiden’s chest. "Fine, what, you want to hear it? I know you do. _I know you do_ . And it's not a fucking-- a fucking _good thing_ . There are things I have thought about doing and I have wanted to do and there are things I've _fucking done_ to the people who've done things to me that I know you'd approve of. But you shouldn't approve, and I shouldn't fucking do it, because it's _fucked up_ and it's _foul_ and no one ever, _ever_ gets everything right about the story of the people they kill, it's always just the _fucking_ degree of _how wrong they've got it._ "

Aiden had shot right back. "And I've seen the part of you that hates that I don't hate those bits of you. Though let me say, here: it's not so much that it _thrills_ me, it's just that it seems like you’ve got it pretty well-handled there on the hating-you-for-it front."

"But that's the thing about liking what I see in you, Lambert. I like the part of you that hates that I like it, too."

He'd reached up and covered Lambert's hand with his. "You don't do anything you think matters by halves. That's what I like best, y'know? And I like you, Lambert."

Lambert had looked at Aiden, Aiden had looked right back, and Lambert was just trying to process through all these entirely new… _things_ he was feeling when Aiden leaned in and kissed him and then he had to _stop everything_ to process that _entirely new set of things_.

"Ah, drat. Ah, that's not how I'd hoped this would go," Aiden had said after he'd pulled back, when Lambert didn't pull away or kiss back on account of _everything being stopped._

That time, Lambert didn't wait for Aiden to fall asleep before packing his shit and leaving. Aiden had watched him go and waved goodbye, grinning cheerily all the while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cliff notes for ya:
> 
> lambert: hah HAH. you can't mortifyingly ordeal a man if he _ejects himself into the atmosphere first!!_  
>  aiden from a distance: get back here and get your rewards you fucking donkus


	5. Concentrate and ask again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally we have reached the promised riddles! believe it or not, i am actually just that big of a nerd that my eternally favorite writer will always be my boy willy shakes-p, so i always enjoy me the opportunity to drop into some sizzling-hot verse.

The sun's fairly low by the time they reach Sequana's little space on the river-bank. They'd really taken their time, though they'd been able to fill it; two days left alone in Toussaint and Aiden had managed to get far more dishes under his belt than could be calculated out into reasonable meals, and of course he had extended opinions on all of them.

And that meant Lambert did some time-filling of his own when he had to argue those opinions, because Aiden was the sort of bizarre-tongued motherfucker who put fruit jam in his tea and fruit jam on his cheese and fruit jam in his jerky cure and just _carried around jars of fruit jam with him_ to add on things _you should not be adding fruit jam on_ and what, is Lambert just supposed to _stand for that?_

So they'd filled the time just fine. Unlike Aiden, with the fucking _obsession with jams_ , Sequana at least had some good taste, Lambert has to admit while he's dismounting and doing the usual scan-for-threats-plan-for-outs once-over he does for any environment (as he's of the opinion it's better always on his toes than ever he be caught flat-footed.) It's out of the way of the main river, so it's quieter, secluded by an old-growth willow tree while still allowing the view.

He puts his hands on his hips as he stands on the hillock and waits for Aiden to take his usual far-too-long with his horse-handling and finally come over. "Only works with one, you said?"

"Only works with one," Aiden confirms as solemnly as he can fake. "You have been called upon, o' Master Puzzles-Are-Easy-Shit. Prove me your title."

Lambert is aware that answering with a 'fucking fine then, I _will'_ would just come off as petulant and only make Aiden laugh anyway, so he just goes, careful not to slip on the smooth, spring-fresh grass on the floor of his descent.

He peers into the water, and as-promised doesn't see the monster-eyes looking back. Instead, where he should be, there's the flat (as flat as it could be in a slow-moving river, anyway) image of a slim, dusky-skinned young women. Her mantle is dark and wet, but she's at least been spared the bloating or matte-skinned clamminess of a drowned body-- he supposes that wouldn't be _romantic_ enough. Even the ghosts don't ever quit with that shit when it comes to _fucking_ Toussaint.

Where her face should be, it's obscured by a permanent ripple on the water, radiating from its center. It's a ripple on the image itself, not an actual water-ripple, so there's the disconcerting feeling of constantly spotting an optical illusion.

Lambert just squints. Best to be frank-- more words just gives spirits more space to spin their bullshit. "Sequana. How can I break the curse?"

The woman's voice that floats over the breeze on the river in a high, haunting song is reedy and a bit thin at the singing, but can at least carry its fucking tune, which is always a nice bonus on the creepy singing front with your average ghosting.

_I ask, but never answer._

Lambert nods. "Witcher. Where's the thing I need to break?"

It takes a moment for the reply to float over. Lambert tilts his head and waits.

_I am a floor without walls,_

_I am a wave without hands_

_I am what a man but survives_

_from within should he speak no demands._

Lambert nods again. Unsurprising, given the circumstances. "On it or in it?"

_I live within calm waters_

_Though I am never wet,_

_My gaze holds strong though my sight falters,_

_My eyes are blind; you are seen yet._

Now it's Lambert who has to take the moment to follow the train of curse-logic, but when he does, it's gratifyingly straight-forward. He spares a passing thought to whatever asshole set this one up-- he's got to admit, so far as cursing goes, this one's a particularly high quality. "--Got it. Narrows it down, thanks. Is it in something? Anything I can use to spot it?"

_When I still lived I fed the living,_

_Now in my death their weight I bear._

_No wind could move me 'ere fruit 'twas giving,_

_Now in my death, what holds me there?_

"What holds it there?"

_Throw me away when yet I'm in use,_

_Bring me back as it's done by a pull of my noose._

"Got it. I'll get it. What should I do when I find it?"

_If my release is what you fain,_

_From this prison cast in tain:_

_I war against wave and fight against speed,_

_Made stronger staid at rest,_

_If freeing my spirit be true then so heed,_

_Make same of the source s'my behest._

"Will do," Lambert confirms with a final nod, and heads back up the bank to where Aiden's been hovering out of reflection range. He yawns, cracking his shoulders, before he says "Well, it's not like it'll be going anywhere this late. Let's head into Flovive-- you said there was an inn?"

Aiden just blinks at him. His grin has gone fully fixed, for some reason. "I have... ... _no_ idea what just happened there."

Lambert waves his hand irritably. "Maybe if you spent more time _paying attention_ and less time thinking up new things to shove your _sugary quince goop_ into, you'd figure shit like this out, Aiden."

"You _know_ it's called cotignac and you haven't even tried it, you barbarian," Aiden counters. Lambert makes a face to approximate how much he's looking forward to _that_ eventuality, but Aiden actually manages to stay on the topic for once. "What, exactly, are we to look for tomorrow, Master Lambert?"

"Boat anchored in the harbor, probably the richest one," Lambert says, "If it's decked out in fruitwood like she said."

"And she… said that, about the fruitwood?"

"It's got to be fruitwood, doesn't it? No way some girl from a cushy Toussaint fishing village is out there grilling pine-bark over Igni to keep from starving."

Aiden stops smiling for a moment to stare blankly at him. "Lambert, are you meaning to tell me you've been out there so strapped it's driven you to _eating trees_."

"What?" Lambert returns waspishly. "They're free and fucking edible."

"Lambert. I can lend you money, you know. Not even the blood money, just some from the monster contracts. You don't have to eat trees to survive, Lambert, _you have friends_."

Lambert treats that to the double bow-fingers it deserves.

Aiden shakes his head, looking exasperated. "You know I'm no fan of what the Cat school's been up to since the coup, but sometimes I get a look into what sort of things they were raising you Wolf pups up on and maybe _nobody's_ in the right here."

"What, did the fucking _child sacrifice_ not tip you off?"

Aiden rocks back on his heels to laugh, grinning again. "Got me there! But lead me through it, Master Lambert, show me the way of the riddling master."

Lambert takes up the mantle of exasperation now, listing them off brusquely. "First one was 'the river'. Floor, waves-- that was the trick to it. The thing she wasn't saying. Next was another owl-one, it was indirect. Best answer she could spot me was 'reflection', but there you go, on the water."

Aiden is watching him with something that feels uncomfortably like mounting wonder. Lambert looks away and starts to walk the bank back towards their horses. If Aiden's apparently so fucking interested in this it's on him to catch up. "Then the answer was 'boat', or 'ship'-- more importantly, a fancy one. I don't gotta be a carpenter to know fruitwood fittings on your boat is fancy shit."

"Nor do you have to be a carpenter, apparently, to _eat trees_ \-- I can't believe I've got to actually convince a _tree-eater_ to try _cotignac_ , you are just, just a _ridiculous person_ sometimes--"

Lambert treats that to another bow-fingers over the shoulder as he walks and just rolls over the whining. "Next was 'anchor', so it's anchored here now, and then she doubled down with it on the next answer, so we find the thing, we 'throw it overboard'. There you go. See?"

"I do see," Aiden says, "And yet I don't see at all. Like, you've done it, and that's-- well, really, it's amazing, Lambert, but I still at this moment have no idea how you did it."

"I _just said_ ," Lambert accuses, pointing at Aiden from over the withers of his horse.

"No, no, you certainly did. It's just that you're an absolutely ridiculous person, you know."

Lambert snorts in response as he saddles up. "You just said," he responds dryly, "Catch me at the inn," and doesn't wait for Aiden to take his far-too-long to get up, riding off to the sound of his plaintive whines.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cliff notes for ya:  
> lambert, stomping around an exorcism: fucking don't TRY for an aria if you can't SING one, ghost-fuck  
> a ghost: all right, i know i've been trying to tear your guts out but you are being unnecessarily hurtful,
> 
> also, the fruit-jam-jerky take is inspired by the hty sweet beef jerky that was half-off so i bought it because fruit jerky with jam, _yeah, sure_ , i guess i have to at least _try_. quite tasty! thumbs up from me if it's ever on sale bc it's like seven bucks usually and it ain't THAT tasty.
> 
> bow-fingers themselves are unfortunately mythstory not history, but it's exactly the sort of gritty-very-human anecdote i'd expect from the witcher-verse so i added them and they're legit now because I Feel So


	6. Signs point to yes.

Aiden catches up to him at the inn, and it's only then that the thought catches up to Lambert that this might be a problem.

Because usually, in the _before_ of this, they'd get one room. And, if it was cheaper with one bed, they'd get one bed, because Lambert was (sensibly) cheap and Aiden (sensibly, Lambert thought) didn't see the point of paying more for a separate bed if his feet were probably still going to be hanging off the end of it anyway. But things are different now, while they're in this breakable-feeling liminal space. He may have a plan on the curse-breaking front for tomorrow, but he has not even the first gods-damn clue what he should be doing on the rooming-together front for tonight.

In the end, Aiden just pulls his usual and resolves it for them both by being the one to ask. "Do you want your own room?"

_Do you want_ , not _are you getting_ , which makes it easier to shrug and say "Don't care."

"Let's stick with one, then," Aiden says with a grin, and goes to get a room while Lambert skulks near the doorway. He tries to tell himself he's keeping back because Aiden's clearly already pulled the smile-and-stupid-jokes Axii of his on the innkeeper before. Then Lambert gives up on the admittedly perfunctory effort and just admits to himself it's because he doesn't even want to add the one-bed-two-bed question to all the shit he's already got swirling in the back of his mind. Aiden set this off so Aiden can deal.

Turns out Aiden went with the two beds. Lambert throws his pack on the one near the window, then fishes in the lining where he's sewn in the concealed pocket for his coin so he can pay Aiden his half in upfront. Aiden takes it without comment, which is reassuring-- Lambert's not entirely sure _what_ he'd do if Aiden started insisting he pay for Lambert's shit because he's-- _whatever,_ but he's entirely certain its driving force would be a general sentiment of _no_.

Aiden drops his own pack next to the other bed, takes a moment to look it up and down and sigh when it turns out, unsurprisingly, his feet will yet again be hanging over the edge tonight, and then sits on it and pats next to him in invitation.

Lambert, already feeling wary and trying not to look it, strides forward and drops next to him heavily, causing the thin frame to creak.

"Am I your first?" Aiden asks, after a moment.

"First what?"

"Open question, I suppose. However much you feel like sharing. First man to pursue you, perhaps. Or first person to pursue you romantically. Or," he pauses, and the next words are carefully light and so painstakingly scoured of all judgement it's absolutely backfired and made the investment Aiden has in the answer obnoxiously clear, "pursue you sexually."

Lambert rolls his eyes and decides to cut through the shit, because if he's leaving all the starts of these up to Aiden to handle he might as well pull his weight and take them to the finish. "You want to know if I'm actually a virgin or not."

"No! Well, yes? I've been _so curious,_ Lambert," Aiden says, a clear slip from the supportive-nonthreatening-persona he'd been _clearly_ just projecting. "But truly, you only have to share what's comfortable for you."

Which, there's a reason for Aiden to be curious, he supposes. Lambert generally has an inverse interest in sharing his personal life when it comes to how much someone else wants to know.

(And maybe it made it easier for him, to not answer when asked, because maybe Lambert doesn't really _have_ a neat answer when it comes to him and sex. And the unexpected benefit about being designated-unfuckable by humans means it doesn't often come up in the first place, so he generally doesn't _need_ one. But he doesn't really recognize the passing lusts that men recount to each other, the double-takes made when someone young and pretty trundles by. He knows he gets indiscriminately horny when he's drunk enough, but that's mainly through reports by secondary sources; by the time he's drunk enough to start getting horny, he's generally drunk enough he remembers the occasion of it not at all, and he'd assume he was far too incoherent during to learn from it even if it wasn't just one of those blanks.)

The inverse-interest tactic ended up bow-snapping back on him when he finally met someone with the same impulse, though, because his aggressive disinterest in other people's lives apparently meant it was open season for Aiden telling him all about _his_.

So he couldn't say it was balanced, no. Aiden might not know much on him, but he probably knows about as much as the man himself remembers on Aiden's firsts, by now.

* * *

Lambert had known Aiden fell in love with men early on, on account of Aiden up and telling him (Lambert hadn't, of course, asked.) He'd also told him it was women at first, for whatever reason, (also hadn't asked, _note the pattern.)_ Honestly, the logical flying leap of a witcher going around _falling in love_ with people was more of a challenge for Lambert to clear than the short hop concerning the specific bits attached to those people.

Unlike the falling-in-love debate, the conversation over correcting the lie hadn't taken long, though he always suspected Aiden had thought it would take much longer.

"You don't have a problem with that?" Aiden has asked, after he'd explained.

Lambert had raised his eyebrows disdainfully. "Why should you care?"

"I-- sorry, you've lost me."

"It's your fucking business, isn't it? Sure as shit ain't mine."

"So you're… all right with it?" Aiden had checked, and Lambert had blown out an exasperated breath.

"I don't _care_ , Aiden. And _nor should you_ about what _I_ think on the matter, because it's _not my business_. So long as no one's hurting, _whatever_ the hell _any_ people are doing in their bedrolls is _not something I need to know._ "

"Aaaaahuh," Aiden had considered, drawing the noise out. "I honestly can't tell if that's understanding or insulting."

Lambert had shrugged.

"And-- more than sex? Relationships with men?"

"Same rule. No one's hurting, don't care. Still isn't any of my business. And it's not like witchers go around having _extended relations_ with anyone, so it'll never be."

"It doesn't have to be like that," Aiden had said, and reached down his collar for the small ornamental vial of long-crystallized honey he keeps next to his medallion. "I should know."

Lambert had squinted at it, and then jabbed his finger at Aiden accusingly. "--Wait. You scarecrow-ass son of a bitch, you told me Idaia was a woman."

"Ah, right, about that," Aiden at least has the grace to look sheepish, "Ah-- no, Idaia actually went by Dion, most of the time."

"Most of the time?"

"Well, he looked really fantastic in a dress. Almost as good as you, you know."

Lambert had thrown his hands up. "A man likes to dress up when he's drunk! Is that a _crime_ , I ask you."

And then they'd fallen back into what would soon enough become the well-tred pattern of their usual banter from there. So Lambert had honestly thought-- well, that was the be-all-end of it. Until, well.

It wasn't.

And he knew Aiden went off on occasions to fuck other men, at times. He'd never thought about it much, other than idly noting Aiden had a pretty amazing hit-rate for getting it free over any witcher Lambert had seen try for it out of the whorehouse. Though honestly, he couldn't himself say whether it was because of the lighthearted manner and the un-threatening mop of black hair and the implicit promise of being proportional (what, _he_ didn't say it, _everyone_ knows what they say) that made Aiden so apparently-irresistible to humans, or if it was just that men everywhere seem kind of easier to convince to throw down for a fuck when you're trying.

Beyond that, he'd tuned it out, because when he's not spinning bullshit he actually does mean what he says: it wasn't his business. If Aiden had really wanted Lambert to know anything more about the men he fucked, Aiden would have told him, regardless of relative decorum or whether Lambert asked or not. It's not like specifically-not-being-asked ever stopped the man _before_.

But they'd never yet actually _talked_ about what Lambert did on the sex front, because Aiden might be naturally nosy but he at least had enough self-preservation to realize how trying to nose into the affairs of someone _entirely_ willing to nose-cut if it'll end in a good enough face-spite would go for him.

Although it's not like the answer there was ever even a secret that could be kept, anyway-- shared rooms and shared camps meant that even if he always made sure to keep his getting off to those times he knew Aiden'd be out for a while, he'd cut it close often enough that there was no hiding the scent.

But that was part of living in close proximity to someone with enhanced-- even if subpar, and dependent on his _mouth-breathing_ like an actual cat's, fucking _hah_ \-- smell. Lambert's inured to it himself by virtue of having to bunk in his youth with a passel of horny teenage boys in a single, enclosed hall, making "someone here just jacked it" more background noise in his baseline perception than anything usually on his mind.

So he'd known Aiden would get aroused sometimes, but paid as much attention to the cause for it as he did for himself: not much. It happened or it didn't. Something to be dealt with when you had the space and time. He'd kind of thought Aiden had similarly tuned Lambert out but-- shit, if Aiden really, if he actually--

* * *

He cuts those thoughts off at the head with the force of a skeggox before it leads him down to doing something regrettable, like spilling out the abrupt question of if Aiden's been getting off on his getting off or not.

"I'm not a virgin, no," he says. "There was-- someone, once."

Lambert turns to look at Aiden, because this is the sort of talk it feels cowardly to look away from, opens his mouth and-- is immediately distracted that for all that Aiden had pitched his voice low and careful, he apparently cannot manage to hide the fact he is downright _vibrating_ with anticipation. Lambert snaps his mouth shut, looks down, and then looks up to squint.

"Whaaaat?" Aiden whines, dropping the pretense of anything but blatant eagerness. Lambert isn't sure _what_ he feels about that sort of reaction, but he thinks it's in the general area of 'affronted'. "You can't blame me! It's been _so hard_ for me to not ask you about this! I wanted to know from the start, I told you! And I've only wanted to know even more the more I've known you!"

Lambert has, for some other reason chalked up to feeling-he-can't-parse, the stupidest urge to wrap his arms around himself, like he's seen those fucking fear-locked human idiots sometimes do after he's yanked them out of the path of certain death and dressed them down. "That's-- it's not like you'll ever _meet_ her."

"Her, so it was a her!" Aiden trills, practically bouncing now. "How did you meet? How long were you together? What did she look like, how old was she-- ah! How old were _you_ when--"

"Look, why are you so fucking interested in this?" Lambert snaps. He sort of wants to pull back, even, but he doesn't; he's already resolved that he's tired of this running-away shit he's kept doing. He might not be able to control his mouth, sometimes, but he can at least keep a handle on his body.

"Of course I'm interested! I want to know everything about you, Lambert. Just another part of the liking-you thing, you know?"

Lambert hadn't known. Or maybe he had, and just didn't want to really confront that thought head-on just yet until Aiden decided to just up and spike it at him anyway, _thanks_. Turning his attentions away from _that_ to recounting his experience with Dusana is almost a relief for the distraction it provides.

"It wasn't-- it wasn't anything like you and Dion. Not at all. It was-- we weren't _in love_ or anything, I just _knew_ her."

Aiden is quiet for a moment. "Why her? What made you take her offer?" 

There's a moment where he considers snapping that maybe _he_ was the one who made the offer, Aiden doesn't know. But like Aiden keeps saying (and don't think that it's been in _any way_ subtle, _Aiden)_ , he does know Lambert pretty well, so he can at least accept it's a reasonable assumption.

Lambert shakes his head, suddenly frustrated by the limits of language, the indignity of having to recount something in clumsy and fallible words. "No, I mean-- I _knew_ her. She'd been on the caravan I was escorting out through some rough territory in the region. It was about re-establishing the trade route, so it was-- I'd known her for a few months. I knew who she was, I knew how she acted, I knew how she-- you know. I didn't-- didn't _love_ her or anything, but we got along, and I could tell what she was thinking, usually. I'd know if she lied."

Aiden has gone quiet, though he makes a long, contemplative noise at that.

"So-- at the end of it," Lambert continues, "When we were almost at her send-off, she offered, and I thought, sure, let's try, and then--" he gestures in front of him. "So I'm not a virgin. With women," he amends, because it has just now occurred to him that maybe there's virginity with men, too. Though honestly, he'd never been certain on what the actual rules on that were for women, either. No one had ever seemed very clear on the subject and given his usual disinterest it never seemed relevant enough to ask unless he suspected a Bane was about.

"Did you-- ah, was it something you liked?" Aiden asks, picking through his phrasing.

Lambert shrugged, then nodded. "Yeah, I-- it went fine. I liked it fine. But not enough to start hunting around for whores, or anything."

"Because you don't know them," Aiden surmises.

Lambert nods, rubbing a hand over his face. All this mental scrabbling back and forth to put things he's never actually talked about into coherent talking-about form has left him weirdly shaky and even something-like-exhausted in a way that's got to be all brain and no body, given the absolute laze of a day they'd just had.

Lambert makes the sudden decision that fuck it, he's feeling _tired_ , so if Aiden wants to know so bad he can sort it out _himself_ , and lets it all spill out of him in a rush so he can just get this _over_ with.

"With a whore, just-- I'd spend the entire fucking time trying to read her to tell what she was _actually_ thinking about what I was doing and having _no_ fucking lead on how to _know_ because I don't fucking _know_ her so I. I'd just fucking be there with my cock out feeling half-cocked and it's not like I can-- I can fucking _turn it off_. You _know_ how much I fucking hate those jobs where it turns out we don't actually know shit-all about the circumstances halfway through, Aiden. When we have to take it from there knowing _nothing_. I _hate_ it. And I can't just _stop_ with the thinking. Why would I need all that gods-damn shit on my shoulders when I'm trying to get off?"

"Mmmmm," Aiden considers. "You know, I think I get it."

Which is a weird fucking thing to say, because Lambert sure as hell doesn't know what there is to get, other than that he's sort of a mess. Fuck them all, though, at least he's the sort of mess that saves on his coin 'cuz his hand tarts it out to to him for _free_.

Lambert is definitely too tired for any more-- anything. Definitely for this conversation. He pushes to stand. "Gonna go to bed."

Aiden, surprisingly on one front (considering his character) and entirely unsurprisingly on the other (considering his character), doesn't pursue Lambert or the thread of this conversation any further. He just nods agreeably. "Good call. Better to wake up early so we can make sure we can get a good look before the fishing boats come out."

Lambert considers arguing that no one's got a fishing boat in _fruitwood_ , but whether or not Aiden actually intends it as an out, Lambert isn't turning it down. "Mm. Night."

"I'm glad you told me that, Lambert. Thank you."

All right, so apparently Aiden didn't intend it as an out. Well, this is hardly the first time Lambert has had to do it on his own. "Fucking _sleep_ , scarecrow."

Aiden can't keep the chuckle from his voice, but at least he leaves it at "See you in the morning, Lam-boy."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cliff notes for ya:  
> aiden: your mind can take you dark places, some times  
> lambert, internally: those three hours i wasted staring at you asleep while on watch and wondering if you were particularly fuckable in general or if men just aren't as choosy  
> lambert: buddy you got no idea  
> 
> 
> one of the best things about lambert as a character is how we have video evidence that if you get this lad drunk enough he will get randy for everything from hypothetical sorceresses to eskel in an admittedly fetching dress, which. i'm not going to hazard _what_ that says about his sexuality but boy it sure says _something_


	7. You can rely on it.

They go to the docks in the morning, and it's almost laughably straight-forward. (A rarity for any job, let alone a curse-breaking.) It helps that 'docks' is kind of an overstatement. The boat's piss-easy to find. As predicted, it's the richest one of the bare handful in the harbor, a neatly-crafted if small-ish trading vessel with a clearly new and clearly expensive red-brown accents and in-lay.

They stay near the boat, as the two of them figure that in a village as fuck-all-but-scenic as Flovive, either the owner will run out of things to do and come over on their own soon enough or another local will gossip to them about those two unknown men being conspicuously suspicious near their property and draw them over that way. What, any witcher worth the saltpeter in their piss knows that small towns work the same all fucking over.

In the meantime, he and Aiden loiter aggressively and debate if Lambert can tell if it's genuinely cherrywood or not. (Which, for the record: _he can_ , because _some_ people try to learn more about picking out scents than just _mouthbreathing their way through a smile_.)

"Cherrywood's got a smell. Huh. You'd know, I guess," Aiden says, swinging his crane-fly legs as he sits on the side of the dock, " _Tree-eater_."

Lambert's chosen to hook his thumbs in his belt and do some blatantly insolent leaning against the boat as his tactic. "What, you think there's good eating on _cherry trees_? You wantwit, you'd ruin your appetite," he shoots back lazily, "don't you remember your alchemy? I might as well knock back a straight shot of prussic acid. No, I stick to the kinds of foliage easier on the stomach in my day-to-day."

Aiden whips his head around so he can stare at Lambert incredulously. " _Melitele's_ sweet _lips_ \--, _Lambert_ , how many trees have you _eaten in your life_ \--"

Lambert stares solemnly out ahead of him at the river, because if he looks anywhere else he will definitely give the game away and start smiling.

"You're fucking with me," Aiden surmises, staring suspiciously at Lambert's stolid and single-direction focus out onto the water. "You can't look at me, you're definitely fucking with me. And now you're laughing-- _yes_ , I can still tell you're laughing if you turn away from me, Lambert, you aren't anything like _subtle_ with that--"

"M'not fucking with you about the acid, though," Lambert finally manages, when he's collected himself and Aiden has stopped trying to kick at him from where he's still got his ass planted on the dock. "It's got that scent of it, that's how I know. Like almonds."

"Oh, we should find ourselves some clafoutis after this, so long as we're in Toussaint," Aiden says, in the familiarly drifting tone of a man who has once again tossed his current train of thought in favor of more of those concerningly detailed fantasies about foods. "They bake the cherries right into the flan of it stones and all, did you know? It gives it a hint of that almond flavor, like you've said."

"That is not remotely what I said," Lambert replies, but he's aware that he's not being listened to any more.

Aiden makes it through an entirely one-sided debate on the merits of marchpane, which Lambert at least recognizes (if admittedly from afar) and has moved on to his recent love affair with something Lambert doesn't even know he calls sambocade ( _flowers_ and _cheese_? In a _sweet?_ Ugh, is there _nothing_ they won't put cheese on over here, no _wonder_ Aiden loves fucking _Toussaint_ \--) while Lambert keeps an absent ear on him and a much more attentive eye on the general area. He takes the time himself to idly scout out his habitual at-least-three good bug-out routes in case a quick exit's needed. Can't see it happening in a fuck-all like Flovive, but you never know, knock-on-cherry-wood.

(He does, just in case, 'cuz he's still trying to see if it works. Hey, if Destiny's happy to take its dues in wood knocks for once and let up on all its fucking hard knocks, Lambert will punch every tree from here to Zerrikania.)

Aiden's distracted himself from his own distraction with something called darioles and Lambert's long lost in his personal contemplation of just how long that punching-trip would take him, counting in the travel time and the season and counting off his fingers to account for threes and sevens, when the boat's owner finally shows. A whipcord-thin middle-aged woman arrives in a sweep of fine clothing quite a ways off, the purpose of her direction catching both men's enhanced eyes and wandering attentions immediately.

Aiden stands while Lambert pushes himself off the boat. "Oh! I've already met her!" Aiden exclaims brightly, adjusting his swords straight. "That's Sequana's last surviving family-- her dear aunt. That's excellent, then."

"Excellent how? This is a trading ship, Aiden," Lambert snipes, watching her narrowly. "She's a _merchant_ , she's gonna be fucking horrid. And we're not here to _bring the family closure_ anyway, scarecrow. We just need to find what the thing is, grab it from her, and toss it."

"No, no, you'll see. We'll just have to be straightforward in our explanation and appeal to her better nature. This is good fortune!"

Lambert just rolls his eyes and gives the boat's wooden siding another handful of knocks for good measure, because from what he knows of merchants and what he knows of _family_ , he's not holding out much for their chances.

* * *

Turns out Sequana's _dear_ aunt doesn't actually have a shred of better nature. Lambert doesn't know why Aiden's so surprised about that-- He knows that _he's_ never met anyone in commerce who's had one of those in stock, he doesn't see why one of them being someone's auntie-dearest-on-a-boat would make her the _exception_.

It's another straightforward answer, in that it answered all those questions about the curse-breaking they hadn't known to ask. Certainly explained the oddness of the spirit of Sequana's obscured face. They don't have to press the women to explain it, even. Aiden just had to get her going, and now it's probably going to be harder to make her _stop_ telling them about it.

It turns out after Sequana's departure from life she'd gone on quite the journey, and was dredged up as her body passed Beauclair. Fascinated by the identity of the unknown beauty (because fucking _Toussaint_ , they _never_ leave off with that shit) a death mask had been quickly made for purposes of possible identification. The plaster cast had eventually made its way back to Flovive to her aunt to confirm it was indeed Sequana.

Dear Aunt, who was so terribly, terribly busy (but apparently had _all the time in the world_ to tell the two men she'd just met how _very so busy_ she's been) only just recently had the time to pick up Sequana's remains from Beauclair, and while there had received an offer from the coroner-- the court's artist had seen the beauty of Sequana's serene complexion in her death, and would pay out the nose to have that death mask for himself as inspiration. And then came all the _other_ offers.

So, because she was a _merchant_ , (he _really_ doesn't know why Aiden keeps blinking so rapidly in the way he does when humans throw him, _none_ of this has been surprising so far) of course she'd paddled right on back to pick up and sell the last image she'd ever have of her dead niece. And had even had herself the bright idea of making a new mould from it, too. So even with the girl herself now ashes and the original wax mould long-melted, Dear Aunt had gone and found a way to hawk off duplicates of a _dead girl's face_ to other hobnobbers and the court-hopefuls.

"But she's cursed, madame, don't you see? Trapped within the Sansretour without her face!" Aiden tries, because he _believes in people_ (fucking hah.)

"--well, I don't see what that has to do with me and my five hundred crowns. She can go drown in that river, for all that I care--"

"She already-- look, she was your _niece_ , doesn't that count for something?"

"--never gave me a single cent from that dreary poetry, you know, and turned all those men down-- and some of them _noble-blooded_ , even, turning them all down when she could've given the whole _family_ an in to trade in Beauclair--"

Aiden looks back to him beseechingly. Lambert lets his expression go as sardonic as he's feeling. He's had a lot of practice in the art. "Better nature, huh," he drawls, for good measure.

" _Fine_ , yes, you go," Aiden sighs, moving to the side.

"--always was the most horrid little hussy, and why shouldn't I finally see a profit from her, then? If she was too snotty to make some coin off that pretty face of hers then I might as will--"

Lambert strides forward, snatches the death mask from her hands, cracks it in half on the side of the boat and tosses it into the water.

The result is instantaneous. There's the ear-pop of someone else's long-held breath let out and the shiver of his amulet that confirmed yep, that broke it on his and Aiden's side, but even Dear Aunt can see the sudden and explosive rise of Sequana's essence from the river. She's fully visible, face restored, in the mist and fractal-light of the water so violently disturbed for only an instant. It's just long enough for her to mouth "Thank you" before disappearing, and yeah, he might not usually feel much in the way of passing lusts but even he can see why everyone was so insistent she was a looker, if she always looked like that when she smiled.

He turns back to the gaping Dear Aunt and crosses his arms. "Doesn't matter if she's pretty. She chose to die and be forgotten."

"Well!" she finally manages to gasp, pressing her bejeweled claws to her chest. "I never-- the _nerve on you._ If I hadn't thought to make a way to cast another, you'd owe me five hundred crowns!"

Lambert grimaces. Oh, _great_ , you don't even have to be _hired_ to do the curse-breaker to end up once-again-enmired in that _fucking_ other part. "Come the-- you _saw_ the fucking release even if you couldn't _feel_ it. She _obviously_ didn't want _anyone_ selling her face. Just get rid of it, you selfish _shrew_ \--"

"Oh, don't you _dare_ lip off to me, not after what you did, it's not like a creature like you'd ever seen five hundred crowns in your life, looking like you do, don't think I don't see the eyes on the both of you. Best clear off or I'll call the Ducal Guard on you, see if I don't, get my five hundred crowns from your hide that way--"

He just-- every time. Every time. He hates, hates, hates the other part. This is why he _doesn't take curse-breakers_ , he reminds himself with savage spike of anger inwards as he turns on his heels to storm off the dock, because he ought've _fucking_ learned from the last time he was in Toussaint and had the gods-damn fool thought that maybe he could _help_ \--

Then it's Aiden's turn to stride right around him, snatch the mould now in Dear Aunt's hands, snap it into several neat pieces, and toss it into the water right after the death mask. Unlike the dramatic display of the broken curse, it's just a very mundane handful of plunks. Nevertheless, watching them sink just the same feels real satisfying.

"My five hundred crowns!" Dear Aunt wails.

Lambert, who'd turned back to watch when passed, points to her, then to Aiden for good measure. "I didn't do that," he says. "He did it, I didn't do it. I'm not paying for shit."

"Ah, no, it was definitely me who did it," Aiden agrees, grinning companionably. "And I'm not paying for shit either, but in my case I consider it a moral stance."

Dear Aunt intakes a breath.

(So in the end, maybe knocking on wood really is just a bullshit superstition for all the good it's done him so far. At least Lambert can always rely on his good sense to scout for bug-out routes in advance when they have sudden need to quickly leave the area.)

* * *

"Hopefully she's not so influential in the trade around here," Aiden muses. They've both dismounted and are leading their horses to reward them with a bit of a rest for their role in the hasty escape.

"Knowing our luck, she's the maven of it all and I'll have to cross Toussaint off the map for a while, again," Lambert replies darkly. He considers finding some wood to knock on, but he'd have to hand off his horse and that wood-knocking shit's wasted its chance to prove itself, anyway.

"That was odd. She was family, she should have been much more sad about the whole thing. I wasn't reading that wrong, was I? With my--" Aiden gestures to the side of his head. It's not often he sounds concerned about social niceties, which he attributed (Lambert hadn't asked) to how many years he'd already been around, but grieving'll always gets him off his footing. One man's mountain passage, Lambert reflects.

"No, it was exactly the sort of sordid pig-fuckery one should expect from those creatures wearing a human's guise known as the _common_ _merchant._ They're not like us, Aiden. They don't feel things like we do. Well," Lambert amends, upon further thought, "Like I do, and you try."

Aiden nods in acknowledgement. "You're really feeling captious, aren't you," he laughs. "What is it about merchants, then?"

Lambert is silent for a moment. Then decides he may as well just get it over with. "They shouldn't be allowed to ban people from marketplaces just for cursing when you haggle," he says, with dignity, and then waits, _with dignity_.

When Aiden's finally done with all the _cackling like he's demented_ and is prepared to act like a fucking _civilized person_ again, he beams and stretches his arms out in enjoyment of the fresh spring air. "Still-- look at that! Sequana's at rest. Won and done, son! Hey, not bad at the talking all poetical myself, am I."

Lambert feels his eye-roll serves as his answer.

Aiden lets the warmth of the day and the song-bird chirp quiet ride for a bit, and Lambert's grateful, but he yanks that feeling back real quick when Aiden breaks it to say "I think we should talk about why you don't do curse-breaking, now."

Lambert lets the silence go for as long as he can get away with. Aiden opens his mouth again to follow up, so he hazards out "Wouldn't you rather talk about the kiss," even knowing it's mostly hopeless. There's no throwing him off when he sounds decisive like that.

"Nice try, Lam-boy. No, it's kept so far, it'll keep."

"I have-- a good reason," Lambert states through his teeth.

"Ah, a good reason, he says! Then there should be little challenge sharing it with me, shouldn't there?"

Lambert can't think up a retort for that, so he switches tactics. "If you-- if you really _like_ me so fucking much, you should learn to _trust_ me when I say it's a good reason."

"It's entirely a matter of trust," Aiden easily agrees, which is _not_ any tactic Lambert was anticipating and throws him precariously off from his stride.

"Lambert, I can't trust you on this," Aiden continues, "because _you_ don't trust you on this. No," he presses his fingers to Lambert's lips to cut off his reply, and the easy intimacy of the gesture (further even than those friendly touches Lambert knows Aiden had to ease him into) is what startles him back into silence more than its actual effectiveness. "If you truly believed you were justified, you'd argue it with me. You'll argue most everything else. But I don't think you can, with this one, because you don't stick to arguments you can't win. So rather than accept it's not a good argument, and that you need to think it over again, you'd rather leave it inside you and not look at it. Like you said," he finishes, with a small smile.

That's a lot at once, and it's making him feel a lot of things, but from the sudden urge to fucking bite off Aiden's fingers he can at least be certain the foremost part is _anger_. He shoves Aiden's hand off. "Fuck you. _Fuck_ you. You don't know _shit_. You don't know _shit-all_ about what you're talking about."

"So tell me," Aiden says.

And Lambert's suddenly that disastrous sort of mad he gets sometimes where those things he hides in him just start spilling out, where he hears things like that and one of those mean and hurting parts of him gives up trying and snarls _fine, I will_ and he no longer _cares_ that it'll hurt people and it'll hurt him.

"Fine," he hisses, throwing the reins down and leaving his horse to follow the path so he can properly round on Aiden and jab his finger into his chest. " _Fine_. You want to know? There _was_ no fucking curse."

Aiden, as usual, takes his display of aggression with none of the regard it deserves, though at least he's deigned to stop fucking _grinning_. "The Retz manor," he says, not making it a question.

"Yeah, _the Retz manor_ ," Lambert parrots his solemn tone back at him, sneering and acidic. "You were gods-damned _right,_ no survivors. I made _sure._ Four men _dead_ and the manor burned so it'd be harder to tell _I_ was the one that fucking killed them."

Aiden has, for some reason, been nodding this whole while, like he's figured something out. "...Wow, Lambert," he finally says, while Lambert's seethingly considering popping him one in his fucking face if he's going to bobble it like that so much, "Did you let the dogs and horses out first?"

Lambert stares.

"Before you burned it down," Aiden clarifies, in a tone like he thinks he's being _helpful_.

"Did I-- Aiden, I _murdered four people_ and _burned down a nobleman's manor_. You are the _first_ person I have _ever_ admitted this to, in two-in-a-half-fucking-decades, and you're asking me about the _dogs and horses_!?"

"Well, yes. It's important to me to know the dogs and horses on that property got a chance at full and fulfilling lives in the afters."

Lambert doesn't answer that for a moment, in the hopeless hope that maybe the silence might knock Aiden back to his fucking _sense_ , before grudgingly gritting out " _Fine_. Yeah. Yeah, I let 'em loose."

Aiden's only response is to hum approvingly. Lambert can't honestly tell if he's more relieved or insulted by how mildly Aiden is taking this. "Why are you-- _why,_ " is all Lambert can put forth at the moment on the matter. He thinks he might be bewildered.

"Well, the reason I recognized the de Retz name in the first place is because I'd been looking into all the children gone missing in the area myself at the time," Aiden replies. He's started smiling again. "I may not be a master of riddles like you, but it was fairly easy back then to make the connection from the unexplained death of the Retz scion and the sudden cessation of children disappearing without a trace. Then you said you were involved, and I thought 'ah, there you go, that must have been it, then'. And after that, the only real question I had left was if you remembered the dogs and horses. You can be pretty single-minded at times."

Aiden grins down at him. "So! Not-sorry-at-all-to-say: you haven't driven me off, Lambert."

Lambert drops his hand and steps away. "That's not what I was trying--" except Lambert can't actually close on it, because now that he's had the fire of his rage snuffed out from under him he actually can see he kind of, well. Was trying.

Aiden nods in agreement to his telling stop into sudden silence. "You were. And I still like you. And want to kiss you. And while one does not _preclude_ the other, I will note that everything you've heard about bedding a Cat witcher is entirely true and more." He winks, and possibly waggles his eyebrows. Hard to tell under the mop.

Lambert opens his mouth and automatically starts to say "So then that song about the sandpaper suckjob--" and Aiden cuts him off.

"Everything _good_ , I mean, yes I shouldn't have left you that opening, thank you, Lambert, I see that now. Try again," he directs.

"I murdered my father," Lambert returns blankly, because it's the only other thing he can think there is to say.

And Aiden's sum total reaction to that is to blink and say "Ah, so you really _don't_ remember," which: _what._

" _What,_ "he asks, still blankly, because _what._

Aiden shakes his head at him, smiling again. "Sometimes, when you're really, really drunk, you tell me things about your father. But I never could tell if you actually remembered in the morning or not."

"I can never remember what happened after if I've drunk enough during," Lambert agrees. It sounds like it's coming from far away. Coupled with the dazed feeling and the ringing in his ears, it feels like the bomb Aiden's just dropped was more literal than its phrasing.

"That's what I always thought, but I didn't know for sure. And it didn't seem right to bring up to you myself until you actually wanted to tell me about it while sober. Was I wrong?"

Lambert mutely shakes his head and Aiden nods in response. Aiden reaches out to rest his hand on Lambert's shoulder. Lambert looks down at it; it's far easier than daring to look at Aiden's face.

"And I'll tell you the same thing I've told you every time, now that you'll properly remember," he says. Lambert swallows. "The only worth your father ever had was his part in bringing you into the world. Sometimes, reaping suffering is justice. The world, for all its things worth having, is far too cruel to allow mercy to make more suffering."

Aiden brings his hand up to Lambert's face, the wide breadth of his palm carrying the scent of his rein's leather. So now Lambert _has_ to look at him, and. "You're not a wicked man for reducing the world's total suffering, Lambert. Be it from monster or anyone else."

Then he drops his hand to take his horse's reins again. "I'll round up your horse and go on ahead a bit, shall I? Catch up with me when you're ready, Lambert. I'll be here."

Lambert manages a nod, at least. Aiden pats him on the shoulder one last time and tugs his horse on.

Lambert watches his back retreat ahead up the path and listens to the noise of the cheerfully off-tune humming he's started up as he walks recede and feels the phantom press of Aiden's hand on his face and thinks about leaving and then starts to really think.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cliff notes for ya:  
> aiden: lambert, have you ever considered you have trust issues?  
> lambert: how the FUCK did you know that. did someone tell you. who? why were you talking about me. why the fuck are you so fucking interested in my LIFE *pulls knife* _MOTHERFUCKER WHO SENT YOU_  
>  aiden: hoo boy okay this might take a while,
> 
> this whole case-fic scenario was inspired by my long-held position that l'inconnue de la seine is hugely uncomfortable morally as an art object because _who was that_. you don't know who that was. you can't just use some dead girl's face if you _don't even know who she was._ just because she's dead now doesn't mean she's not a still a person!! put that image of her face back where you found it!!
> 
> one more after this to close us out! this is actually the longest form solo writing project i've ever successfully attempted! given it's an almost-oc pairing of a minor character in a video game i don't expect it to ever pop off popularity-wise but i'm quite satisfied with the end result myself!! look at that trail of ledes i buried behind me and with STILL MORE TO GO, i feel like i'm crafting treasure map.


	8. Without a doubt.

It takes a while for Lambert to catch up. He has a lot to think about.

He thinks maybe Aiden let him run like that so easily after the kiss because Aiden knows him.

Because he'd seen the tendency in Lambert, even if Lambert never liked to look at it himself. Because Aiden knows sometimes Lambert's dark places are enough to get himself running scared even though he's technically-fearless. Because he still gets scared. Because he might not feel the chemical rush of it sear down the back of his neck (like it used to when he was a kid) ever again but it's not like he can just _stop_ with the thinking. It's just one of those head problems that's never gone away where all he's ever been able to _do_ is deal.

But then maybe Aiden also knows that when he runs scared from something he thinks matters it'll never be for too long. Because he might be a runner about a few (some) (a lot of) things he keeps inside, and he might not like much of what he sees in there when he looks at everything in him he hides (to keep safe) (them? himself?) but like hell does that mean that when it really _counts_ will he ever _run away_.

Maybe Aiden was even counting on that, when he kissed him.

And maybe Aiden trusts in that part of Lambert too, the same way Lambert knows he can trust in it. The same way Aiden sometimes gets into things only because he trusts Lambert to get them out if they have the sudden need.

For all that they'd just had to fuck-outta Flovive, Aiden's never been a runner, when it comes to the things that matter to him. Aiden's braver than Lambert in a lot of ways, he knows. He's always been aware of it, really, from the very start, when Aiden never gave up and never stopped caring that way that he does for everyone who's suffering.

It's one of those things Lambert always knew about himself whether he looked at it or not, that he'll never be able to make himself be brave like that. Not about some things. Not when it would make them matter. Because when things matter to Lambert, he can never do anything about it by halves. He can't help it. And that's one of those things he's always kept tucked away (where it's safe) where he never has to look at it, where he knows no one else will ever see it--

He thinks of Sequana's parting smile. He thinks of Aiden's, before he turned and went on ahead, his grin as he snapped the mould in his hands over and over, the movements brisk and purposeful with his decision.

Aiden's braver than Lambert, in a lot of ways.

So Lambert thinks. About riddles, and seeing the place made for the answer to fit. About how when he does it, when he sees what isn't said, it doesn't mean the riddle _failed_. It meant the riddle _worked_. How the point of a riddle is never to _hide_ the thing that will fit into the gap. The point of a riddle is to show the world the gap, that there's something that will fit there, and make true on its promise that one way or another, it can always be solved.

'Cuz what good's a riddle that refuses to be solved when there's an answer that could fit, anyway?

He thinks about seeing the things inside people that they never (want to) think to say themselves, and how Aiden's always had an uncanny talent for it in all those around him.

He thinks about Aiden, and breaking the mould, and the breaking of moulds, and what that _really_ means, and _gods-damnit_ does this mean Aiden's fucking _right_ about his poetic knack horseshit? Whatever, Lambert's going to blame it on something that's clearly in the water over here in fucking _Toussaint_.

Lambert is suddenly, abruptly, fed up with all this _fucking_ _thinking_. There's those things in life you've just got to weigh out the risks and then kick the scales over and do it anyway, he decides. It feels-- right. it feels like it could be right.

(Like he even needs the good will of fucking _Flovive_ , anyway.)

* * *

He follows Aiden's _obnoxiously_ unsubtle begging-to-be-tracked tracks off from the road and to a small clearing with a spot of sun where Aiden has led the horses to graze. Aiden's there (just like he said.) He's on an incline, soaking up the good day, but he sits up when Lambert drops down next to him.

Aiden smiles at him and doesn't say anything. It makes it easier to speak. He knows what he wants to say, anyway.

"You're-- brave. More than-- more than the part that's being a witcher," Lambert begins, and gestures to the center of Aiden's chest, where he knows the Cat medallion rests under his jack of plate. He's not sure if he's trying to convey Aiden's heart (he's never hesitated to offer) or the small vial he keeps there of honey from the garden of the man he never hesitated to love (even knowing that time would take him, one day) and Aiden still doesn't understand sorrow, really, but he does know how to miss people (and he does know how to hurt, Lambert knows. He'd asked Aiden about it, once.) "You're the bravest person I've ever met. I-- I think I'll ever know."

"It's easy for me to be brave when it's for something worth having," is all Aiden says to that. Then he goes silent, and.

And.

When Aiden uses his silences on Lambert like this it's always for shit that's got meaning so it--

There's always meaning, to the things Aiden says. He doesn't act without it. Lambert knew this from the start. It was, he reflects, probably the thing that most made him need to run.

"It's taking me-- it's going to take me some time. To... get that."

The nod in return is amiable. "Ah, no, I figured right off this was something to do with your soft lil' hedgehog's belly."

Lambert slaps Aiden's hand away before he can poke him in the stomach, snapping "If you keep calling these _personal moments_ I _choose to allow you_ that fucking hedgehog belly thing I will never fuck you ever as a matter of _personal principle_ , Aiden."

"But that's the biggest problem, right?" Aiden returns, entirely too serious in tone for a man who'd just attempted to poke at his stomach. "That it'd be more than fucking."

Lambert nods, then sighs, finally surrendering and letting the pressing weight of it all slump him forward. He presses his clasped hands to his face. "It just keeps-- going around in circles. You're the best friend I've ever had. Which is why I start thinking it could-- work. But you're the best friend I've ever _had_ , Aiden. So I start thinking about what if it _doesn't_ work, or I fuck it up, and then you'll--"

Aiden holds a hand up, and Lambert's honesty grateful for the excuse to stop before he digs any deeper. Aiden considers for a long moment before he speaks.

"I-- and wait until I finish this whole sentence, Lambert, please-- can't promise that our friendship could survive a relationship _because,_ " he puts his hand up again like the act could actually stay an objection, "I can't promise that _I_ won't be the one to fuck it all up."

Lambert stares at him, all the replies he'd had loaded up halfway through that sentence useless at the end of it.

Aiden smiles down at him, in the dimpling-way that indicates he's probably trying not to laugh. "All that thinking and you didn't think of that, did you? It's kind of flattering, honestly." He tilts to the side, pressing the side of his arm against Lambert's. "I wish you could see yourself the way that I see you, Lambert. I really do like you, you know. More than anything. I think you're just-- amazing, sometimes, and brilliant, and the longer I know you the more I like you. I love you, in fact!"

Lambert can't find anything in himself to say to that, so he just ends up shoving back against Aiden with his shoulder and turning away to look at-- well, to stop himself from being looked at like that, if he's honest. Maybe it's not the most mature reaction to it, but he's expended a fucking _lot_ on the doing-things-right front today, maybe all he's got _left_ in him is a shove.

"Nope, can't stop me from saying it, now," Aiden chirps in response. "I said it! Djinn's out of the bottle. I loooooove you, Lambert. By bunches. By bales! Wow!" He lies back, stretching his arms over his head, his body pressed close enough now that they're still leg-to-leg. "Y'know," he muses, with all apparent satisfaction, "Wherever you end up on this when you've thought it through, I think I'm honestly satisfied. It just feels good to _finally_ have it out there! Let loose! I'm free! Sprung from my depths, like the beautiful Sequana! Hey, what was _that_ about, anyway."

This time, Lambert's sure Aiden intends it as an out. "Bet you it was getting hoist on a quote-unquote fairy blessing," Lambert replies as he stands.

Aiden rocks back to rise as dramatically as ever, because never will he ever be able to stand up like he's _fucking normal_. "Ah! Has Master Lambert riddled out the answer?"

"Best guess I have, anyway," Lambert shoots over his shoulder idly as he heads towards the horses. "Bet she traded _something_ -she-oughtn't'a-been-talking-to for that pretty face of hers no one can shut up about on the condition she never make a cent off of it."

He unties his horse, and then unties Aiden's horse, because the man himself is apparently as captivated by Lambert's brand of bullshit as he is by fucking _jam_. Maybe that's all right. "Only then she got caught on the technicality and got stuck anyway, which is _why we don't talk to somethings_ , because that shit _always happens._ You think humans would fucking _learn,_ right?"

Aiden hums consideringly as he takes the rope. "Well, best guess I've heard. I suppose we'll never figure out why she killed herself, though."

"Doesn't matter," Lambert says, "It was always her business, anyway. Certainly not the world's. That's what she wanted, and we can at least give her that. So it'll always be her business." He nods. It feels right, standing firm on this. The way Aiden having the balls to toss out that mould felt right.

The way he's started considering that maybe some things could work out all right, after all.

Aiden sighs dreamily, clutching the rope to his chest. "That side of you is so _manly_ , Lambert. Genuine compliment, I'm in love with you more now."

"Will you _stop with that_ ," Lambert says, exasperated.

"Shan't, your wolf-snarling doesn't work on me. I have it on the _best_ authority of the man I _love_ that I am the _bravest_ of them all. Admit it, Lam-boy, you _loooooove_ me," Aiden coos as Lambert mounts up.

"What," Aiden teases, as he at-last moves to his own horse, "Finally no smartass remark?"

"For what?" Lambert asks, before he sets off on a brisk trot back towards the road, "Not like you're wrong."

"Wait, what? Lambert, what? What do you mean by that. Lambert! Laaaaambert! _Lambert get back here I'm not mounted yet_ LAMBERT I'M STILL MOUNTING!! Lambert! Lambert, get _back here_ , you utter-- you utter prick! _LAMBERT!!_ Say it again but for reeeeeal! Laaambert! Of all the times!! Don't stop talking back to me _nnnooowwww_ \--!!"

Lambert can feel himself start smiling as he leaves the plaintive wailing behind him. He lets it happen. Maybe it's something new to try out, the letting-things-happen. Hey, it's a nice day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the very last cliff notes for ya:  
> gaunter o' dimm: a witcher, you say, has broken my curse? that must mean-- i'll get you, _geralt of rivia!!_  
>  meanwhile, geralt of rivia, halfway through a can of applesauce and entirely unaware:
> 
> *closes storybook* and what happened to those lads after they rode off into the sunset? or, rather, one rode off, and the other plaintively wailed after him? well, no one knows, dear readers. but i'll tell you my own hunch: they was kissing, soon enough.
> 
> thank you for reading! this in, fact, the longest-form solo writing project i've ever done, and i'm pleased as punch! i hope you all had as much fun with poking your way through scandalous rival witcher school romance and how, exactly, would one be able to successfully romance That Fractious Goblin, You Know The One, as i had writing it!!

**Author's Note:**

> if you liked my fic, please remember to leave kudos! 
> 
> (｡òᴗ-)7✧ i like seeing who liked my stuff.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [One Good Turn](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24319645) by [Anoke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anoke/pseuds/Anoke)




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